The debate on nature and nurture is longstanding and there is no consensus even today. There is a school of thought that nurture determines the personality of a person and there is enough data and substantiation to prove the same. Ever since Freud laid down the bedrock of our understanding of human psychology, nurture has always been the definer of personality. But there is another school of thought that stresses on heritable personality traits. There is some substantiation to prove that certain personality traits are indeed heritable and while nurture might play a role in influencing those traits, the personality cannot exactly be changed or completely altered.
There are opposing views on all heritable personality traits but here are some that have been substantiated in a few studies.
The most common heritable personality traits are aggressiveness, ambition, emotional wants, leadership, obedience, alienation, fearfulness, approach to managing stress, zest and a sense of well being. Traditionalism is also one of the many heritable personality traits and this particularly comes as a surprise because nurture should always have a greater influence on defining how traditional or adherent to tradition a person is.
As there are multiple arguments in favor and against heritable personality traits, it is necessary to shed some pragmatic light on the various attributes. If a child is timid by nature, then the child can be made less timid or more timid through nurture. But the child cannot do away with timidity in its entirety. The child may not become naturally brave, ever in life. Experiences, nurture or grooming can always contribute to bettering or worsening that timidity but such a child would unlikely be a leader as an adult.
Children have various personality traits and those are displayed in an absolute unadulterated form. Kids show signs of ambition, bravery, aggression, vulnerability to stress or certain phobias and none of these have anything to do with nurture. Surely, parents don’t instill vulnerability to stress in kids and certainly don’t contribute to the development of certain phobias. These are among the many heritable personality traits.
In many studies involving twins who had been separated after birth and have been raised by different parents in completely unassociated social circumstances, there are enough heritable personality traits to infer that nature plays a significant role in determining the personality of a child and when he or she grows up to be an adult.